San Francisco ( Pekingese dog killed by man robbing woman ) Low Life

(12-29) 20:39 PST San Francisco -- Police are trying to find a Tenderloin man who mugged a woman and then killed a 12-year-old, 18-pound Pekingese named Roxie Friday evening when he grabbed the dog and hurled the animal onto the pavement.
The woman pulled over in the first block of Leavenworth Street around 5 p.m. when a suspect approached her and demanded money, said Officer Gordon Shyy, a police spokesman.
The victim, a 30-year-old San Francisco resident, told The Chronicle she had pulled over to search for her cell phone. As she walked around to the passenger side of her car to look under the seat for her phone, a man approached her, said the woman, who asked that her name not be used because she feared retaliation.

"He grabbed me by my collar and pushed me toward the car and said 'Give me all your f-ing money,'" the woman recalled from her San Francisco home Saturday. "With one hand he had me by my collar and with the other he was digging through my pockets."
Seeing this, Roxie began barking at the man through the passenger side window of the car.
The man, whom police have been unable to identify, turned away from the woman. "He said, 'I'm going to kill your f-ing dog,'" the woman said.
"I ran after him as he was walking to my car, I said 'Stop, stop, I'll give you all my money, stop, stop," she said. "He tried to open the door, but I was holding it closed, trying to stop him. But he was punching my arm so I had to let go."
The man opened the door, reached in and grabbed Roxie by her collar and threw her into the street.
"She landed next to a car tire that was parked and she screamed," the woman said.
"I ran toward her and I literally had to pull her and drag her from underneath the tire," the woman added. "When I pulled her out, her right eye was (hurt) and she wasn't moving and she couldn't stand. And she was screaming."
Police, alerted by two passersby, quickly arrived on scene and told the woman to immediately take Roxie to the emergency veterinary hospital at 18th and Alabama streets. But the veterinarians were unable to save the dog.
"They told me that she was in critical condition and she was not going to be well because of (damage to) her leg, her pelvis and her eye was going to get removed," the woman said. "I had to put her under."
The woman returned to the Tenderloin police station, where officers said they had been unable to generate any leads.
The man is described by the woman and police as clean-shaven, lean, 6-foot, 1-inch black man in his 20s, who was dressed all in black and wearing a hoodie or beanie.
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call police at (415) 575-4444 or send a text message to that mentions "SFPD" to TIP411.
The victim, who has owned Roxie for two years, said she would offer a $1,000 reward.
"I just want someone to say something and that's it," she said. "We don't need your phone number, your name, nothing. We just want someone to speak up. I want justice. He killed my dog on purpose."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Police-seeking-S-F-mugger-who-killed-dog-4154968.php#ixzz2GmG9pv3T

DENVER ( Club 64 - Smoke some weed and do some Dancing ) Private club

It was marijuana instead of champagne this year for some New Year's Eve revelers in Colorado, who lit up in private smoking clubs allowed for the first time under the state's new pot laws.
In Denver, people filled out an online application and paid a $30 fee to become part of Club 64, a private marijuana club named after the new pot law, Amendment 64. Members were advised of a private location in downtown Denver where they could attend a New Year's Eve party with other smokers.

"It went really well," said Robert Corry, an attorney who serves as general counsel for the group and helped shape the language of Amendment 64. "We rented out a retail shop for the evening. We had a DJ, music, some dancing, there was a bar and people brought alcohol, people brought food. It was a very warm, fun, happy evening."
Corry said that the idea for a members-only club had been in the works for years, and that Amendment 64 had been crafted specifically to allow for groups of private smokers. The initial gathering drew hundreds of interested smokers, Corry said.

BOGOTA Colombia ( 9 killed in countryside farm - drug wars )

9 people killed in massacre on Colombian farm

The Associated PressAssociated Press

Posted: 12/31/2012 10:39:17 AM MST

BOGOTA, Colombia—Nine people have been shot to death in the countryside outside Medellin in a massacre police suspect is a settling of accounts between drug traffickers. Gen. Yesid Vasquez is commander of the Metropolitan Police Department in Medellin, Colombia's second largest city. He says that the five men and four women were killed on a farm, apparently in the early morning hours of Monday. Vazquez says the slayings following a Sunday afternoon party at the "extremely luxurious" country home, and the farm's owner is among the dead. The general says that the victims were apparently shot with guns that had silencers, explaining why no one nearby reported hearing gunfire. Santiago Londono, secretary of government for Antioquia department says one woman survived the massacre and is being questioned by investigators.

Pakistan ( Gunmen kill five female teachers- and two aid workers )

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed five female teachers and two aid workers on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center, officials said.

The attack was another reminder of the risks to women educators and aid workers from Islamic militants who oppose their work. It was in the same conservative province where militants shot and seriously wounded 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai, an outspoken young activist for girls' education, in October.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest shootings.
The van was transporting teachers and aid workers from the center in conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It is an area where Islamic militants often target women and girls trying to get an education or female teachers.

Militants in the province have blown up schools and killed female educators. They have also kidnapped and killed aid workers, viewing them as promoting a foreign agenda.

Last month, nine people working on an anti-polio vaccination campaign were shot and killed.

The teachers were killed along with two health workers, one man and one woman. Their driver was wounded. They were on their way home from a community center in the town of Swabi where they were working at a primary school for girls and adjoining medical center.

Swabi police chief Abdur Rasheed said most of the women killed were between the ages of 20 and 22. He said four gunmen who used two motorcycles fled the scene and have not been apprehended.

The gunmen on motorcycles opened fire with automatic weapons, said Javed Akhtar, executive director of the non-governmental organization Support With Working Solutions. The NGO conducts programs in the education and health sectors and runs the community center in Swabi, he said. The group has been active in the city since 1992, and started the Ujala Community Welfare Center in 2010, he added. Ujala means "light" in Urdu.

The center is financed by the Pakistani government's Poverty Alleviation Program and a German organization, said Akhtar.
He said the NGO also runs health and education projects in the South Waziristan tribal area, as well as health projects in the cities of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan and the regions of Lower Dir and Upper Kurram. All of those cities and regions are in northwest Pakistan, the area that has been most affected by the ongoing fight with militants opposed to the current government.

Aid groups such as Support With Working Solutions often provide a vital role in many areas of Pakistan where the government has been unable to provide services such as medical clinics or schools. But in some areas like the northwest, they have had to work to overcome community fears that they are promoting a foreign agenda at odds with local traditions and values.

Akhtar said he has directed staff at all projects to stop working for the time being until security measures are reviewed but vowed that they would resume their work soon.

He said that the NGO had not received any threats before the attack.

In a case in the same province that gained international attention, a Taliban gunman shot 15-year-old Yousufzai in the head last October for criticizing the militants and promoting girls' education. She is currently recovering in Britain.

JAPAN ( Detained 3 Chinese fishermen in Japan waters - They were fined 49,000 dollars )

Japan releases 3 Chinese caught illegally fishing

CrimeJan. 01, 2013 - 05:16AM JST( 0 )

BEIJING —

Three Chinese fishermen detained for illegal fishing in Japan’s waters were released Monday after promising to pay a 4.28 million yen ($49,700) fine, China’s state news agency Xinhua said, citing the consulate general in Fukuoka.

Xinhua said the detention of the three fishermen for unauthorised coral fishing within Japanese waters was “peacefully resolved” within 48 hours.
The detention comes as tensions simmer between China and Japan over ownership of disputed islands near Taiwan, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. The dispute had sparked waves of anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities this year.
Chinese fishermen tend to fish in waters far east of China to get away from depleted stocks at home.
The captain of the Chinese fishing boat that was among those detained had admitted to being in Japanese waters, Xinhua said on Sunday.
Japanese news agency Kyodo said separately on Monday that the captain was arrested on Saturday for fishing in Japan’s exclusive economic zone without permission, charges that he admitted to.

MEXICO ( 82 women killed in Juarez in 2012 ) Women's Rights group disagree

Office: 82 women slain in Juárez in 2012

By Juan Antonio Rodríguez \ El Paso Timeselpasotimes.com

Posted: 09/19/2012 10:31:43 AM MDT

 

A poster about missing women in Juarez was sponsored by a Mexican government agency investigating crimes against women. (Jesus Alcazar / El Paso Times)

Up to 82 women have been slain in Juárez so far this year, and the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office in Juárez is linking 59 of these cases to organized crime.
The 23 other cases are labeled as genre crimes, because the victims were killed with knives, were beaten to death, or sexually assaulted, according to Silvia Nájera, a spokeswoman for the Crimes Against Women Special Unit in Juárez.
Chihuahua authorities attribute 59 slayings to organized crime, because the victims were shot to death, Nájera said.
But advocates for women's rights are in disagreement with the way those homicides are labeled.
"Those cases had not been thoroughly investigated by authorities," said Cecilia Espinosa, a member of Workshop for Women in Juárez. "Therefore, officials weren't able to determine the motive of the killings."
Instead of elaborating on those cases, officials label the victims as if they were at fault, Espinosa said.
Cases of women shot to death are turned over to the office as linked to organized crime, while the rest are handed for investigation to the Crimes Against Women Special Unit, said Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office.
Compared with the past two years, the tally of women slain by organized crime has decreased in 2012, Sandoval said.
Espinosa pointed out the vicious ways the women were killed.
On Sept. 3, Belinda Aidé Moncayo, 42, was killed with an ax, officials said. Her body was found in the Valle de Juárez rural area.


Five women have been killed in Juárez in September alone, officials said.

April was the deadliest month for women, with 18 victims reported, according to figures released by the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office.

Humberto Robles, with the May Our Daughters Come Back Home organization in Juárez, said the impunity of these killings contributes to worsening violence against women.

Authorities "take advantage of the so-called war against drugs cartels to link the victims to organized crime, instead of inquiring into the causes of those killings," Robles said. "It is good fishing in troubled waters, I guess."
Robles said that victims are labeled as prostitutes, the same way they were categorized in the 1990s, he said.

Robles said he doesn't believe the statistics provided by Chihuahua officials because those numbers conflict with figures released by Mexican national news media.

According to figures released by the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office, 98 women were slain in Juárez in 2008. The number of women killed increased in 2009, to 183, and the number in 2010 was 325, when the feud between drug cartels in Juárez peaked.

In 2011, 196 women were killed in Juárez, according to Chihuahua state figures.

A report released by Amnesty International in July indicates that the bodies of 13 young women were discovered in the Valle de Juárez rural area earlier this year.

In addition, 115 young girls remain missing in Juárez, according to the Amnesty International report. Those deaths have not been investigated appropriately and that leads to impunity, according to the report.

WASHINGTON (Hillary Clinton in hospital for blood clot ) Breaking news

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month.

 

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines says her doctors discovered the clot during a follow-up exam Sunday. Reines says Clinton is being treated with anti-coagulants.

Clinton was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital so doctors can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours.

Reines says doctors will continue to assess Clinton's condition, "including other issues associated with her concussion."